


What They Grow Beyond

by HarpiaHarpyja



Series: How Soon Unaccountable [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Actual Force Nerd Kylo Ren, Actual Force Nerd Rey of Jakku, Actual Sacred Texts Nerds, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fishing with the Force, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hungry Makeouts, Lonely Bitter Boy Big Ben, Marooned on a Moon, Mutual Pining, Post-TLJ, Rey Likes Kylo's Ship Wink Wink, Rey Picks Her Teeth in Polite Company, Rey is Canonically Terrible at Goodbyes, Reylo - Freeform, Thank Your Dead Dad for Your Knowledge of Smuggler Hideouts, The Foraging Adventures of Kylo Ren: Exile, Things Rey Has Eaten: A Scorpion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 13:30:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14058003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarpiaHarpyja/pseuds/HarpiaHarpyja
Summary: As their time together on Charissia reaches its inevitable conclusion with Rey's departure for the Resistance base, Rey and Kylo tie up some unexpected loose ends and try to plan for what may be to come.





	What They Grow Beyond

**Author's Note:**

> I definitely should have titled this series "Rey and Kylo Eat Things and Talk," because as I wrap this up it's become apparent to me that they share food in basically every story. Or maybe I should not write when hungry.
> 
> Anyway, this is it! The last story in this series. And it's the longest, which is maybe good, if you've been enjoying it. 
> 
> Thank you again to anyone who has been following along, reading, commenting, kudosing, etc. I have loved reading people's comments and thoughts, and am so glad it's been a fun ride. :)

The clunk of Rey’s boots hitting the floor as she entered the hut and kicked them off announced her arrival long after Kylo had already sensed her approach.

“I left my wet clothes laid out to dry on your ship,” she said, fussing with a clasp on her bag. She sounded dubious. “I saw yours there and figured it was okay.”

Kylo shrugged and pushed one of the fish around in the pan. It was the last that needed cooking, so he was pleased she arrived back when she did. He didn’t want to wait to eat but would have felt the need to do so if she was still gone. “That’s fine. I don’t know it will do much good without the sun.”

“Better than nothing.” He sensed her behind him, and then she was beside him and peering at the stovetop. She made a short humming sound. “And this looks better than the rations I brought.”

“We agree on that,” he answered, tipping the fish out, then taking the full plate and brushing her elbow with his as he turned away. 

He had started a fire outside as the light dwindled—perhaps the only good thing about using trees as practice targets was that doing so provided an excess of dry wood—and didn’t feel like eating in the close confines of the hut. Between the clear skies and firelight, it would be more than bright enough. Rey got the hint and followed him out, abandoning her pack on the floor with a thud. They didn’t exchange any words as they settled side by side next to the fire and the ring of round stones that contained it. There were no utensils, but he didn’t think she would care about using her hands to eat, which she proved by immediately tearing into the first fish in reach. Kylo considered telling her to watch out for the tiny bones, but she seemed to know already. He decided he would be better served making sure not to get his hands in the way of hers lest he risk losing one.

After they had been eating for a while, she abruptly spoke up. “This is nice. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” His eyes narrowed. “The glimpses I’ve had into your diet made me think you might appreciate it.”

Rey scowled, but there was no real malice in it, if only because she was so content with the food. “How did you get these, anyway? I tried to picture you splashing around after them, but I doubt that’s how it went.”

Kylo looked at her askance. He bet Rey _had_ been trying to picture him, splashing around or otherwise. She’d kept looking at him in the hut after he returned from bathing in the lake—she’d done it several times, in fact—and she didn’t seem to care any longer if he noticed her doing so. For all their talk of hunger and eating, he doubted that food was all she’d had on her mind then. 

Regardless, now she was only asking him a question. Helping himself to a large bite of fish, he gestured with his free hand at one of the mostly unburnt pieces of wood at the edge of the fire. It rose slowly into the air, rotated a few times, and landed in the flames with a spray of embers when he let it fall. Rey, who had no reason to be impressed by the method and clearly wasn’t, observed and chuckled.

“Fishing with the Force.” She was chewing enthusiastically and smiling through it. “So stupid, and yet so practical. Lifting rocks.”

He didn’t get the reference, if she was making one, but he returned her smile.

“There are some plants in the lake that are edible as well. Technically. I tried them. I wouldn’t recommend it.” They had been bitter and slimy, neither of which inclined him to eat them again when there were other things available. “And a sort of crustacean, too. In the rocks near the shallows. They look a little like caw-crabs, but smaller and easier to eat. Not bad. I didn’t see any today though.”

“What’s a caw-crab?”

“Ah.” Of course she wouldn’t know what that was. Kylo glanced at her. She was watching the fire and licking her fingers, relaxed in the heat and the orange glow. “Like a very large aquatic spider, I guess. With a thick exoskeleton. And pincers.”

Rey nodded in understanding. “Sounds like a sandscorpion. I ate those a few times when I was low on food and could catch them without getting stung. Shockingly tasty. Good protein, too.”

As ever, she spoke so impassively about the deprivation and hardship of her upbringing on that wasteland Jakku that he didn’t know what he was supposed to say, if anything. After another moment or two, she seemed to realize this and added, “So, no caw-crabs for us tonight. Too bad. Sounds like it would have rounded this out.”

“They were very common on Chandrila. At least around the coastal areas.” He reached for the plate and plucked through some bones until he found an edible piece of fish, then busied himself with pulling it apart.

“Is that where you grew up?” she asked, picking at something in her teeth.

He paused, suddenly not sure how they had gotten on this topic. Ever since she’d arrived it was like he couldn’t stop letting his mind wander to the past. It wasn’t even her doing. He frowned. “Chandrila, yes.” 

She didn’t respond, and Kylo didn’t want to talk about the things he’d spent years divorcing himself from, so he didn’t say anything either. But after another minute or so the silence became heavier and then smothering, and he turned his head to see what she was doing. She was still staring into the flames, but she was no longer at ease. She looked fierce and somehow lovelier for it, which he sensed portended something he might not want to hear.

Sooner or later she wouldn’t be able to hold it back. “Rey.” Her eyes flicked to him, very clearly troubled, and so he had to ask, even knowing he would regret it. “What is it?”

“Why are you doing this?” she said. She didn’t sound angry or accusing. Only curious, if stern. Even as she sat there eating messily and pausing every so often to wipe her hands off on her knees, it was impossible not to take her seriously. She expected a satisfactory response. 

In light of this, Kylo blinked and thought better of giving a glib answer, because he genuinely wasn’t sure what she meant. “Doing what?”

“Staying here. Cutting trees up. Living out of a trunk in a hovel. Using your ship as a laundry rack. Eating fish and . . . _weeds_ you find in a lake.” Rey gestured a little wildly and stared at him, shaking her head like the compounded ridiculousness of it was suddenly too much. When she put it the way she was, it did sound absurd. “Why, when you have a place you can go?”

“I thought,” he said, swallowing, “that you weren’t going to tell me to come back.”

“I’m not telling you to come back. I’m asking you to tell me why you won’t. Why you’re staying here instead when you have nothing to keep you away anymore. I want to understand.”

He sniffed, annoyed to find that she was at least somewhat right. She hadn’t indicated that she expected him to come back. And he no longer had Snoke, or the First Order, or the Knights of Ren to hold to. Or anything, really, to hold to. Except himself. And her. But Rey was wrong to say that nothing was keeping him away. Where she was, he couldn’t go. He’d been wronged and done wrong, and he was not convinced it was worth fixing, or could be fixed at all.

“Because I choose this. I don’t have a place there,” he said after thinking it over. “Except maybe in a cell. I don’t want it. Any of it. I’d rather die here.”

Instantly Kylo saw that something in what he said had wounded her, and he regretted whatever it was. Rey opened her mouth like she was going to speak, then looked down and glared at the pile of fish carcasses instead. 

“Is that what you want? To die here?” she muttered stiffly. “You sound like Luke did.”

The mention of that name, hearing her voice utter such a comparison, was a white-hot wound in return. It was somehow worse than any time she had called him a monster, or a murderer, the way she now invoked one of his own personal monsters with such ease. It made him want to break something. At that moment a few of the logs in the fire collapsed loudly into one another as they burned, sending up more embers, and he wasn’t sure if it was his or her doing or simply the laws of physics. Kylo cast about for something else to focus on and, finding nothing, stood up and strode away around the fire, unable to look at her.

For a while all he heard was the crackling of the flames. Then he heard Rey exhale, right behind him. Barefoot like he was, she had crept up with shocking silence through the cool grass.

“Please come sit down. That’s not—I only meant that . . .” Her voice trailed, and it felt as if she was steeling herself. Then her arms slid around his waist, and she pressed against his back. He went rigid at first, but slackened into the embrace as she continued speaking, her low voice vibrating in her chest and up his spine. “Listen. When I see you here, and how you’re living, and how I suppose you plan to go on living, it reminds me of how I found Luke when I went to him. And he was so miserable, and broken, and . . . full of regret, and shame. He’d cut himself away from anyone who loved or needed him and was resigned to just go on like that until he died. Running away didn't _fix_ anything. It hurt him, and it hurt other people. It hurt you. And I hate thinking that you’ll go that way.”

“He deserved it.” Kylo thought of finding Luke on Crait, the rage and humiliation and terror he felt at facing the man whose betrayal had haunted him for so long. The sensation, like plummeting, of being robbed of his right to vengeance and realizing that Luke was right: vengeance would not have fixed anything anyway. It would only have left a rotten void to match the one hollowed into his mind by years of Snoke’s presence and the one he had cleaved into his own heart when he killed Han. “And so do I.”

“You’re wrong. About him. He chose to mend what he could, in the end. And you’re wrong about yourself. But you need to believe that or nothing is ever going to be made right.” 

Rey was still holding him. One of her hands sought his. He resisted only insofar as he didn’t actively take it, but he let her lace her fingers through his when she found his hand, and he let her unwind herself from him and lead him back to sit by the fire again. As his surge of anger dwindled, Kylo tried to remember his earlier revelation—Rey still saw something of worth in him. She was the only person he trusted anymore. The mere fact that she returned that trust seemed miraculous. So maybe there was some truth in what she said.

“Tell me,” he said when he was confident his voice would remain steady, “how you see that playing out, exactly. Me, coming back with you. Particularly after you’ve already admitted you’re still lying to everyone there.”

Kylo could see being reminded of that bothered her, but she had heard tougher truths from him before and she let it roll off her. “First of all, I’m not the only person who wants you to come back. Your mother does. Or she would, if she could say that she knows you’re alive. You say your only place would be in a cell, but I don’t agree.”

He grimaced. “You don’t know anything about how these things work.”

“I don’t, you’re right,” she said. “But I know that Leia still believes there’s light in you. And if that’s true, she wouldn’t send the son she loves to spend the rest of his life a prisoner.”

Kylo considered pointing out that his mother had been partially responsible for sending him to Luke, but this was not the same thing, and he didn’t want to talk about Luke again or get into a discussion of family dynamics. Yet for all that, he still loved Leia and thought she did him. He had felt it. Which made it so much harder to talk about as if he didn’t care.

Rey was watching him. Reading him, he knew. She kept going, her voice a little milder. “I would advocate for you. My standing there now is a bit . . . wobbly, but they know I had a reason for what I did in going to you the first time.”

“And you don’t care how they would see you after that. What that traitor you’re so fond of would think.” He said it with great skepticism and, though he could hardly admit it to himself, a touch of jealousy, as if anything to do with a defected Stormtrooper even mattered to him anymore. “Rey from Nowhere, the person who broke faith not once, but twice, about her dealings with the enemy.”

“You’re not my enemy. You don’t have to be theirs, either. They know what you did on the _Supremacy_ , whatever they believe your reasons were. It has to count for something.” She frowned, the very picture of stubbornness. Perhaps she _was_ only trying to understand him—and she certainly wasn’t being swayed from her own convictions. As she continued to speak, Kylo saw that there were things she thought he needed to understand, too. “I said I would help you. I didn’t offer that lightly, and I still mean it, if you'll tell me how I can. It’s important. You’re important, to me.”

This all sounded excruciatingly inadequate and naive to Kylo. He could not conceive of ever having anything but hatred for the Resistance, and vitriol for the fools in it, and resentment for what it represented to him. Even if it stood as the clearest path to destroying the First Order he had long ago ceased to feel any true alliance to and now actively wanted to see broken. But he seized on one point he thought he could work with, for now. It was small and seemed short of untenable to him, but it was something that might be in the direction Rey believed he could one day take. Looking away, he said, “Tell Leia, then.”

She was surprised. “Tell her . . .”

“I don’t know what she thinks you’re doing right now, but stop lying to her. Tell her that this is what you’re doing. That the bond was never broken at all. Tell her that I’m alive and that you still see me. And then you see how she takes that.”

“I wanted to do that anyway,” Rey admitted. “It’s awful keeping this from everyone, but it’s been worst to keep it from her. She must suspect as it is.” Her hands folded in her lap, and he thought she was done, but then she said, “Are you sure, Ben?”

He almost wanted to tell her not to say that name. The impulse to do so was more than a step back by now—he’d been accepting it from her for months without complaint, and it barely registered most of the time—but it was almost too much to hear in the context of this conversation, like being pelted with tokens of the past. He tamped that urge down, though, knowing a name was the least of his problems. He was more surprised instead by Rey’s seeming hesitance to take him at his word on something she so desperately wanted.

“Yes. I’m sure.” It came out too tight, as if there were no three words he would rather say less, which wasn’t true. He tried again. “You want me to tell you how you can help.” 

She nodded. “You think I’m being reductive. But she deserves to know. I . . . won’t tell her where you are, unless you ask me to. The rest, though. I didn’t want to say anything to her without your permission.”

He swallowed again, feeling beaten down and a little ill. “You have it now. Do it.” 

“I will.” 

She looked down to her left, where the remains of their dinner sat, and picked up the plate to toss the bones and discarded skin into the fire. It all crackled and popped, and the needle-thin bones turned black and crumbled to ash almost instantly. Kylo looked up to the sky, where dozens of constellations he was still trying to learn winked back. He sighed shakily. It was getting late.

“You need to get going soon,” he said. 

He hoped it didn’t sound like he was ushering her off. He didn’t want her to go at all, and could almost feel the ghost of her arms around him, but he knew the time was coming. At the very least, they had reached some moderately satisfactory conclusion on a long-standing problem between them, for perhaps the first time. And his self-imposed embargo on the bond was officially null, so they could be in contact whenever they wished. Maybe she would even return, if he asked. They had parted on much worse notes.

“Yeah.” Rey was watching the tree line, where any light from the stars was swallowed up entirely between the trunks and branches. She was squinting, as if doing so might allow her to see all the way through the wood to the lake and her ship. “It’s so dark now, it looks like a completely different place. Have you ever gone through that way at night?”

“Yes.” He didn’t feel very much like laughing, but his voice held a hint of one anyway. “Afraid?” 

He leaned forward to follow her line of focus, but all it accomplished was bringing him nearer to her, which Kylo realized had been his true intention. Her hair was loose and still damp from the lake. From this distance he could smell the cool, herby scent the water had left there and on her skin, mingled with that of the wood and smoke. It was unexpectedly and completely overwhelming, and it reawakened every stray thought of her or desire he’d had since she came here, and before. He moved a hand to the small of her back. 

She noticed and turned to look at him, dreamlike and hazy in the smoke, her eyes probing and intent. “You know I’m not.”

Kylo brought his other hand to her cheek, cupping it gently, savoring the feel of her skin against his fingers. Before he could doubt himself as he had every other time, he kissed her with graceless urgency. She met him just as he remembered, her wanting seemingly surpassed only by his own. Faced with her departure, he was hit all at once by how deeply the loneliness of this place and his weeks-long denial of their bond in it had affected him—and her. He moved both hands to the sides of her face, and hers wound tightly in the front of his shirt, and he kissed her again, harder, trying to root her there, sucking at her bottom lip before moving away only enough to speak. 

“You don’t have to leave.” The statement was more sigh than speech, and he didn’t care how plaintive he sounded. She would feel that and every other emotion radiating from him anyway; they were all for her to do with as she pleased. His next words seemed to float directly from his lips to hers as he kissed her once more. “Not yet. Please. Rey. Don’t go.”

She let him kiss her again and again, seeking him clumsily any time he faltered, and her fingers dug against his chest a little as she pushed into him. He could feel himself being carried away. Something was happening despite his desperation, an unnatural euphoria flaring, the bond between them amplified by their physical presence in a way that was at once wonderful and terrible. Abstractly, he was aware that everything Rey was feeling in this moment, physically and emotionally, was open to him, but he couldn’t focus enough to grasp any of it. Instead he wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her closer into his lap and press against her, his face dropping to follow the slope of her neck with his lips. Once again she pushed her hand against his chest, this time to redirect him. She took his face in her hands and stretched her fingers through his hair. 

“I do have to go. But I’ll stay with you, until morning,” she said, catching her breath and squirming in his lap. She leaned in to brush her lips against his temple, then let her hands drop to rest on his forearms, kneading them slowly to hide how she was shaking. Her mouth had curved into a faint smile, though there was a rueful cast to her eyes. “You could have just asked.”

He could have. He should have. He was being ridiculous. Still, her words flooded him with enormous relief, and they helped him ground himself enough to decide that this wasn’t the best place to be doing this. “You’re right.” 

He indulged in kissing her one more time anyway, more out of gratitude than supplication—a slower, softer catch at her lips that stuttered his breath and made him feel far more vulnerable than had his plea and the relative frenzy that preceded it.

“Maybe we should go inside, though,” she said. The hint of her smile grew into a true grin. “Unless you think I ought to stay out here.”

“Any other demands?” He waited for her to disentangle herself from him and rise, then stood and followed her back to the hut. He felt like an exposed nerve.

“I'll let you know.”

Once inside, any momentum they may have been building was not immediately easy to regain, and Kylo wasn’t sure what to do or what she was expecting him to do. Rey didn’t seem concerned. She was already in front of the fireplace, leaning over it with a lantern and poking around, her nervous energy ebbing.

“Have you used this yet?” she asked.

“No. Only cleaned it out.” He joined her in front of it. “Do you want to?”

“Might be nice to be able to see,” she said. She brushed her arm against his, once, like she was checking to make sure he was still there. “I’m not tired yet, and these lanterns only do so much. I can get it going, if you tell me where the wood is.”

A few minutes later she was already well into the task, going about it with an impressive efficiency that indicated she had done it enough times before. As she worked, Kylo split his time watching her and, when that became strangely unbearable, cleaning up the stove to a degree that wasn’t strictly necessary, mostly in the hopes of keeping out of her way.

“I was looking at your ship earlier.” Rey’s voice cut through the studied silence and jarred him out of his scrubbing. “I’ve never seen a TIE like that, though it reminded me a bit of the old Interceptors. I would run into a few, sometimes, half buried in sand. All rotted out, rusted shells, mostly.”

He smiled to himself, not expecting this turn in the conversation but happy to have it with someone who knew what she was talking about. “It’s a Silencer model. Sienar-Jaemus incorporated elements from older designs. There’s some inspiration from the Interceptor, as you said. Though less now than in the earlier prototype phases.”

“The armament was in a different place than I expected, too. The wing apertures?”

“The positioning of the cannons wi—”

“—widens the field of fire. I assume.” She glanced at him and inclined her chin a little, pleased when she saw she’d been correct in her observation.

“Yeah.” He wanted to kiss her again, so badly.

“I thought so. It’s beautiful work.” She actually sounded a little envious, though he couldn’t tell if it was the ship alone or the implication of his involvement in its development that piqued her. “Though maybe a bit dramatic. Tried to look inside, but I couldn’t get in.” 

He laughed shortly as the faint light of growing flames began to fill the room. It wasn’t difficult, given the small size of the space to begin with. And she had been right—the fire offered a much kinder glow than the lamps, particularly as the firelight from outside began to dwindle.

“You’re not a fan of the concept of private property.”

“Depends.” Dusting her hands off on her pant legs, Rey looked at her work approvingly and walked over to the bed, where she sat on the edge without a trace of the reluctance she had shown when she first arrived. Kylo gave the stove a last pass and went to join her. When he sat, she looked up at him with an arch twist of her mouth. “Maybe you’ll open it up for me some time?”

“As long as you aren’t planning to scavenge it for parts.”

She made a sound that was half laugh, half sigh, then scooted back onto the bed and laid down. He looked over at her, trying to gauge her intentions. She only patted the empty space next to her. The bed wasn’t made for two people, but it was wide enough that he was able to lie beside her with minimal discomfort if they pressed shoulder to shoulder.

Kylo rolled his head to the side, too aware of her skin against his and her eyes on him. It was like being hit with that feeling he’d had outside all over again, a constellating flurry behind his solar plexus, parts of him going cold as others grew hot, when he couldn’t think and just wanted her to be with him. “I thought you said you weren’t tired.”

“Tired? No. Not very.” 

Her eyes glinted in the gold glow and she made as if to sit up but stopped herself, her body tensing abruptly and then relaxing just as quickly. For a moment he was positive she was going to reach for him to resume where they left off outside. He could feel that she wanted to do that, and more, and knew it wasn’t just a projection of his own fluctuating desires in the moment. But whatever she was feeling, there was something else there, too. Something he rarely associated with her: caution. Until now he hadn’t noticed that she’d been radiating it nearly the entire time she was here. Kylo brushed the back of her hand with a finger, and she cleared her throat as if the contact had brought her back to herself. Belatedly, her mouth twitched into a fleeting smile.

“Sorry,” she said, apropos of nothing, staring fixedly at the ceiling. “I thought—we might—that when we got in here, we would . . . kriff, I don’t know what I thought.”

He considered this a moment, then rolled onto his side to face her. He didn’t touch her, but he looked at her pointedly. “Yes, you do.”

“You’re right. I do.” Rey grimaced in annoyance, but only at herself, and was quiet for what felt like a long time, perhaps detailing privately all the things she thought they might do here tonight. Kylo strongly suspected they were much the same things as he’d thought. Then she shook her head, the movement barely noticeable. “It isn’t a good idea.”

He tensed. He hated that she was right. And he hated that she clearly also hated that she was right. The temptation was heavier than ever to let everything go for one night, lose themselves in each other in whatever way they could, and pretend it was no more complicated than a meeting of bodies. But it would never be just that between them. There was too much left unresolved, all of which would remain when the sun returned. As it was, he’d barely been able to figure out what to do after they'd come back inside.

He sighed and reached out to touch her face. Her skin was so warm that he didn’t want to stop, so he let his hand slide down to the side of her neck, where he could feel her pulse quicken as he let his curled fingers rest there. “You should still stay.”

Rey shifted onto her side to mirror him, her knees bent up against his, and pressed her lips to his knuckles. 

“I want to.” Her mouth curved in a half smile as some thought amused her. “I suppose technically we’ve done this before. This bed might even be smaller than mine was that night. I didn’t think that was possible.”

“Not quite the same. We were at the mercy of the Force’s whims that time.” He said it a little ironically, but it was true. Unlike that night, Rey would still be here in the morning. It remained difficult to believe that. He probably wouldn’t be fully convinced until he woke to find her there beside him. He wondered what that would feel like.

“We still are,” she said. “But I think it’s more purposeful than just whim.” 

She shrugged and didn’t elaborate, then leaned just close enough to kiss him, tenderly and carefully, on the lips. Taking advantage of the small space they shared, he nuzzled closer to her, letting his forehead lean to hers. He couldn’t see her expression very well, but he could feel her sorting something out, and he drew an arm around her. Her shirt was thin but rough, not unlike the camp blanket they were currently curled on top of. 

“Do you think you’ll stay here now?” she asked after a few minutes had passed in silence. He assumed she had begun to doze, but then he supposed if she had, it would have been announced by the sound of her snoring. She was picking at the collar of his shirt. Quickly, as if she realized she might be misunderstood, she added, “I mean in general. You think it’s secure?”

This had already occurred to him, many times, and still he was not completely certain. There had been no sign of trouble yet, no indication that the First Order had sent anyone after him, or tracked his ship, or that he’d been betrayed yet again. It was a possibility, though, always; one he was ever aware of and did what he could to stave off fixating on. He had enough to concern himself with. If he needed to leave again, he would just do so. Charissia would become one more place he’d left behind him.

“So far.” 

It probably wasn’t an answer that inspired much confidence, but she didn’t comment immediately. Most likely, she was unsurprised to find he hadn’t planned very far ahead. Instead, she rested a hand at his waist and her face against his neck. When she spoke her voice was muffled into him, all hot breath against his skin, but he could make out her words well enough.

“If you do leave, please tell me where you’re going. Don’t make me wait again.”

It wasn’t a question, but he sensed her uncertainty, and he didn’t want to be the cause for it, so he wrapped her in his arms and held her close until her breathing eased and deepened and her body relaxed into his.

+++

A high, cold sound pierced through what remained of Rey’s easy slumber and woke her far too abruptly. For a moment, she wasn’t sure where she was. She remembered the instant she turned her head and found Ben’s sleeping form close beside her. At least she was fairly certain he was still sleeping. His back was rising and falling slowly, and he didn’t respond to her sudden movement. She watched him for a while and tried to will herself to drift back off. But it wasn’t as easy as it had been last night, after she had simply stopped speaking and let sleep take her, wound into him.

Now she noticed how thin and scratchy the blanket over them was—he must have moved under it at some point after she fell asleep—and how the fire had died hours ago, allowing a slight chill to settle on the room. But she was used to colder nights on Jakku, and here she also had the heat of Ben’s body with her own, easily filling the meager space between them. There was the sun, too, coming in through the window, which warmed her shoulders; but it also shined annoyingly into her eyes. And there was that sound again, like a whistle. This time she was aware enough of her surroundings to pinpoint it immediately. The window above her head must have had a crack or not have been put in properly, and some breeze was intermittently forcing its way through with noisy consequences.

Rey frowned and rolled onto her side to face Ben instead. She would have liked to have been able to see his face right now. She wanted to know what it was like to see him looking peaceful, if such a thing was even possible for him, in sleep or any state. She thought it must be. When they had meditated together, and when she sought him in the Force, she could feel it in him, the potential for something like peace. Stability, maybe. It was obscured in storm still, but present and steadier than it once had been, like his light in the dark. 

For now, she settled for resting a hand lightly between his shoulder blades to feel the movements of his breathing. That, at least, was peaceful. It was relaxing, too, and soon her eyes had fallen shut. Her fingers were beginning to circle absently over his back when she felt him inhale sharply and twitch awake.

They both remained as they were for a few moments, then Ben exhaled as if he had been holding his breath—he had been—and shifted around to face her. His expression was strange, but she thought he looked almost surprised. “You’re still here.”

“I said I would be.” It wasn’t as if she was going to take off in the middle of the night as he slept. Even so, if it was surprise he was expressing, Rey couldn’t blame him. They’d never been together this long, or in this way. “It’s strange, though? I guess.”

“A little.” His eyes darted to the window behind her, and his brow furrowed. “What time is it?”

“No idea. Morning.” She had far less familiarity with the passing of days here, and certainly no idea of what time it was beyond no-longer-night, and Ben looked a little annoyed with himself for asking. 

“Oh, right.” 

“Hm.” Rey brushed his hair away from his face and let her fingers wander over his cheek, the curve of his ear, his jaw. “Your window whistles, by the way.”

A single short laugh escaped him. “I know. It’s annoying. I was planning to fix it yesterday.”

“Might be worth the time later.”

Ben turned his face little, into her hand where it rested near his cheek, and kissed her palm, then drew her arm over him to encourage her to stay close. He looked at the window a second time and settled with his nose against hers, closing his eyes. Rey watched the subtle movements of his eyelids and let her fingers circle along his back again, trying to decide how much longer she could afford to put off leaving. Judging by the fragile thrum of contentment she was currently sensing from him, she doubted he would be the one of them to suggest it first. It didn’t help that the feeling was infectious in a way she knew was particular to them alone.

“Did you know that the bond opened once, after you’d come here? When you weren’t letting me reach you.”

His brow twitched again and he didn’t open his eyes. That would have been answer enough, but then he muttered, “No. How did I miss that?”

“It was at night. I couldn’t sleep. I was working on the lightsaber, I think. Or something. I don’t know. But I looked back at my bed and you were there. Asleep. Your back was to me.” She frowned and almost laughed. “It actually made me really angry. Like you were finally there again but only so I could be reminded that you were ignoring me.”

Just under the hem of her shirt his fingernails were scraping lightly at her lower back, which was giving her goosebumps, and she paused a moment—had he gone back to sleep?

“It made you angry . . .” he prompted after a few more seconds had passed.

She shook her head. “Yeah. You weren’t letting me find you and then the thing just went and opened when I was already frustrated and you were in no state to talk. I was tempted to go wake you up to yell at you.”

He cracked one eye open. “Thanks for not doing that.”

“Well. You disappeared again after a few minutes. I just . . . watched you. After that was when I stopped trying to open it.”

He was quiet, then opened both eyes and looked at her seriously as he recalled her earlier words. “I wasn’t ignoring you.”

“I know.”

It had been so infuriating to be blocked again and again, no matter how hard she’d tried to get him to respond over those weeks. The feeling had been made worse by her knowledge that each time she did so was probably causing him a good deal of discomfort. But part of her had been glad it was, because she hadn’t been able to shake a despair, each time, of being deserted, like he had disavowed their bond. Irrationally, she’d begun to imagine that it had been broken and she was reaching out to something that was no longer there. That maybe he really was dead, that she was being stupid and stubborn, and she would need to live at her end of this thread, tethered to nothing and haunted by the ghosts of memory woven into its fibers, just as she had been on Jakku. That she was clinging to a new daily ritual of denial. 

At least that night, when Rey saw him, she’d known he was still there and that their connection in the Force endured. While her first instinct had been to seek an outlet for her grievances, the minutes in silence ultimately rekindled her hope that the separation was only temporary. She’d been able to let it, and the intrusive thoughts of him, go.

He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead, then rolled onto his back and carried her with him so she could settle against his chest. 

“I shouldn’t have waited so long to tell you what was happening,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was doing yet. If I’d be staying in one place.”

“It doesn’t matter now, really.” 

“It doesn’t. But I knew how it would have made you feel. What you'd have thought. You didn't deserve that.” He paused, and his hand tensed on her arm. “I’m sorry.”

Rey pressed her lips together and looked down. She agreed, mostly, and she believed he understood far too well what she had felt. He was probably thinking of what she had said to him last night, too, before she fell asleep. It was strange to hear him apologize so directly. She hadn’t expected that. But he was sincere. 

“It’s all right.” She tilted her head back a little to try to see his face. “I’m sorry, too. If I made it difficult. I should have trusted you.”

“I’ve given you enough reasons not to.” His voice was flat. He didn’t like admitting that. “It wasn't just you. Being here in general has been difficult. Alone. In my own head, without . . . well. Maybe it was necessary, but it made keeping you out harder.”

His words made her remember how it had felt when Snoke invaded her mind. It hadn’t been the first time someone had done that to her, yet it had felt so different. There was reluctance when Kylo Ren helped himself to her memories in the interrogation chamber, and a lack of conviction that made it easy for her to beat back her fear, find her way into his mind, and drive him away. But Snoke had been utterly smothering, sinking into any crack in her resolve, every weak point in her psyche. It had lasted only a minute or two, but every second felt like being savaged by a ravenous beast that refused to be satisfied until she was torn to pieces. She’d realized at some point days later, waking from a nightmare of it, that it was something Ben had experienced for a far longer time. Thinking of it now made her feel sick.

“He’s gone, you know.” She said it as much to herself as to him.

Beneath her cheek, his chest expanded with a deep breath. “Yes.” 

She took his silence after that to mean he didn’t want to talk about it further. It wasn’t so simple, and it was the sort of thing neither of them could work out today. There would be time, when it was right. She was more confident of that now than she had been when she arrived. 

The high keening of the window interrupted her train of thought, and she rolled her eyes and groaned. “How do you sleep with that?”

“Not well,” he said. “It was easier last night.”

“Hah.” 

Rey had slept better than she had in a while. Even so, her plan was to stay until morning, which it now was. The longer she lingered in this tiny bed with him, even with its scratchy blanket and the pervasive smell of old smoke that still clung to their hair and clothing, the more tempting it became to stay. That was flatly out of the question. She had priorities, and people waiting. She wanted to see Finn. And after this visit, she really needed to talk to Leia. 

Very reluctantly, she sighed and reached up to bury her fingers in Ben’s hair. “I think . . . I need to start thinking about going soon.”

“You should probably hedge that statement in at least one more level of ‘I think’.”

Rey pushed up with her arms and balanced over him a moment, then sat back beside him, looking into his face. Even if he claimed he’d slept enough, he looked tired. He was regarding her pensively, his eyes drifting over her, one of his hands resting on her forearm. She nudged him with a toe, and finally he nodded.

“I know. Okay.” 

Ben pulled away abruptly, got to his feet, and crossed the room to retrieve Rey’s pack, which was just where she had dropped it last night. He was moving with more purpose than seemed needed, but maybe he was doing so to keep himself from trying to convince her to stay again. It was best he didn't. They would both be disappointed. She was just standing, reaching her arms high to stretch her back, when he handed the bag to her and stepped toward the door. 

“Should I feed you?”

“What, like a pet?” Rey scoffed at his wording. “I’ve got time for that, sure. I’m just going to sort some things here.” She gestured to the bag. “I’ll be right out.”

Technically, sorting her bag wasn’t necessary. She needed some space for the clothing she’d left to dry outside, but those would have fit without a redistribution of her supplies. Still, after he exited, she sat at the edge of the bed and drew the flap of the bag open to check that what she was truly looking for was still there. 

The flowers she’d taken from the tree on her walk from the lake rested more or less where she’d laid them. One was a little crushed, but the other two looked whole and relatively fresh. Rey snatched one of those out and stretched back over the bed to place the bloom on the sill of the noisy window, where the flower’s dark petals seemed to suck up any light that hit them. A promise to herself, and to him when he found it later, that she would come back.

The walk out to her ship was already beginning to feel familiar, and at the lake’s edge, a sweet-smelling breeze blew in from one direction. It would have made Rey conscious of how much she reeked of campfire if Ben didn’t as well. They sat next to each other on a rocky outcropping down the shoreline from the E-wing, watching the midmorning sun glint off the still water. She was also sneaking glances at the smaller rocks further down, hoping to spot one of the crabs he’d mentioned last night. There wasn’t time to catch one and cook it, she supposed, but it would be nice to see what they looked like and pretend that she and Ben had more between them right now than a pile of extra fruit packets she’d found at the bottom of her bag. 

He followed her gaze and seemed to realize what she was doing. “It’s not warm enough yet for them to be active,” he said through a mouthful of the dried fruit. “The water’s too cold this early.”

“Oh.” Rey shrugged, feeling caught-out despite how inconsequential it was, and drew her jacket more tightly around herself. “Maybe I’ll see them next time, then.”

“Next time.” He finished off a fourth packet and tossed the empty wrapping into the pile they’d been amassing at their feet, then opened up a fifth and offered her first pick of the contents. “I thought I’d have to ask you to come back.”

She shook her head and finished chewing before she spoke, her voice deadpan. “Wrong. How could I leave the opportunity to see what else you turn up to eat around here?”

“I knew it.”

“I know I don’t really need to be here,” she said. If Ben wasn’t going to be blocking her out anymore, there was no reason they couldn’t see one another at any time. And they most likely would whether they meant to or not, given that the connection continued to open on its own now and then. Rey was certain that if she truly needed to see him for any reason, she would be able to do so. “I like this place, though. I like being able to see it with you.”

“Me too.”

It no longer felt so peculiar to spend this sort of time with him without a more legitimate reason built up around the occasion, whether that reason was simply not being able to choose when the bond opened, or, later, the decision to use the time to explore the bond’s nature to their own ends and determine its limits. Even if she had come here this time to get Ben’s story and put her own mind at ease, that task had been accomplished within an hour of her arrival. Anything after that had simply been her wanting to be with him for as long as she could reasonably make it last. She had few qualms about returning for that purpose alone.

Still, habit compelled her to find a better reason than that, and she’d already worked one out. She had actually done so a while ago, but never found the right moment to bring it up.

“Hey.” She was still watching the water but knew his eyes had locked on her the moment she spoke. His gaze always seemed to carry physical weight, and the Force around him was alive with something elusive but distracting. She needed a moment to purposely take herself out of it before she could remember what she had been about to say. “There’s something I want to ask for your help with.”

That pulse in the Force Rey couldn’t quite name flared and then dampened out into something more obvious—curiosity. Ben shifted to face her, his long legs folding next to hers.

“What kind of something?” He’d crammed nearly an entire fruit packet into his mouth as she was speaking, so the words were barely intelligible.

“I understand if it’s something you don’t want to do.”

He swallowed, and his eyes narrowed as he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “I can’t say if it is or not if you don’t tell me.”

“Right.” 

Rey exhaled and scooted around to look at him in turn. If any part of this was going to set him off as she had done last night, she’d rather at least have the decency to look him in the eye as she said it this time. It wasn’t exactly the same as dropping such a contentious name as Luke’s into the conversation, but she knew how Ben felt about the past—his past, in particular—and this was nothing if not calling that up, if in a more abstract sense. 

“I was thinking, when I come back—” She saw his mouth twitch, like he was fighting not to smile at that reminder. “—I might bring the sacred texts with me.”

Ben’s head tilted a little, but his expression didn’t change much. “The sacred texts.”

“Yes. You know. The Jedi texts. Really old books. From Ahch-To.” The lightness of tone she was striving for failed her, and she waved a hand dismissively. “I’ve been trying to study them, when I have the time, but at least half of them are in no language I can understand. And I know a fair few.”

“And . . . you want me to, what? Help you translate them?” It was still maddeningly difficult to figure out what he was thinking, an effect that was compounded by how easy a time she usually had reading him. On the bright side, Rey knew that if he was angry, she would be able to tell by now. The fact that he was asking her questions seemed mildly promising, or at least not discouraging. Same thing, as far as she was concerned.

“If you can. Maybe you won’t be able to understand them, either.”

Finally his face revealed something. Mostly, that she had just insulted him with the implication that he wouldn’t be able to read the ancient books any better than she could. “I saw that you had them. You were looking through one when the bond opened once. The Aionomica, if I’m not mistaken.”

Rey nodded. He was measuring his words, which made her a little nervous, but he wasn’t trying to avoid the subject, either.

“You stole those, I suppose.”

She was about to object, but he was perfectly correct. There was really no other word for what she’d done in removing them from the tree on Ahch-To and taking them with her. Well, maybe one other word. “I salvaged them. They were being wasted there.”

His mouth twitched again, and this time he let the smile come, though it was faint. “Still a scavenger.”

“Always.” She could remember being so convinced, as she slipped into the hollowed-out uneti tree and began stowing the books in her bag that stormy night on Ahch-To, that she would also be returning to the Resistance with Ben Solo, turned from the dark, as if he were just one more thing for her to reclaim. It was difficult to imagine how things might be different if it had all gone that way, and far easier to see how unrealistic it had been. Rey wrapped her arms around her knees and stole a glance back out at the water. “What do you think, then?”

“Why do you want to bother?”

That was a fair enough question. And a much easier one for her to answer than most of those she imagined he might ask in its stead. Ben still wasn't refusing her. He was trying to understand. 

“Because it’s only me now,” she said. “I don’t know what it means to be a Jedi. Honestly, a lot of what I’ve learned . . . outside the legends and the myths . . . makes me wonder whether it’s something I want to be. All I feel sure of is that the Force is so much more than what the Jedi and the Sith made of it. There’s a lot I don’t know, but these books, maybe they’re a key to figuring that out. To see if there’s a better way.”

“And you're asking me to help with that.”

“Who else would I ask? Why not you?”

“Rey . . .”

“ _Ben_.” It was truly amazing how much he continued to sound like Luke sometimes. Luke, who had told her with such bitter conviction that he intended the Jedi order to die out with him. Ben, who was in his own way so bent on the destruction of the past. “You told me once to let old things die, but I can't do that. Not the way you meant.”

He frowned, suddenly very interested in the texture of the stones they were sitting on.

“There are things worth saving in what's past. And that's what I want to do, if I'm going to do this at all. Make something new with what's left,” Rey said. “But I'd rather share the burden.”

Ben squared his shoulders and looked back to her through the hair that had fallen into his eyes. “You already know Luke tried to make something new. Because of me. To share the burden. And you know where that went. How miserably it failed.”

“Yes. But you understand why it did, better than anyone.” It felt like such a risk, saying that. Maybe it was an overstep. Maybe she was wrong. She had hoped to leave him here on a positive note, but despite herself, Rey was now bracing for the worst. “Please. Help me do this right.”

“You have an answer for everything, don’t you.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No matter what I say.”

She felt it again, that hum of energy from earlier, coursing through the Force, from him, seeking her. This time she could recall what it reminded her of—the depth of his empathy when she told him of her experience in the cave on Ahch-To. It surprised her to feel it now, when she was beginning to expect a flat rejection of her proposal. And it alarmed her when she perceived that this, whatever it was, was far stronger and more complex than empathy alone. Rey blinked at him and waited, without an answer for once, her throat tight.

“Bring one. Whichever one is giving you the most trouble.” He exhaled heavily. “For the record, this wasn’t what I had in mind when I offered to teach you.”

Rey had been feeling so uncertain that his words made her laugh, if only to let some of that tension loose. 

“What?”

“Nothing. Just that none of this is what either of us had in mind, is it?” On impulse, she rested a hand on his knee. “Thank you.”

He covered her hand with his and nodded. “Save the thanks until I give you a real reason for it.”

“I don't have much in the way of expectations right now. Beyond the books no longer being nonsense I can’t understand.”

“The Jedi were remarkably vain and self-righteous,” he said drily. “Even if you can understand the words, don't be surprised if they still amount to nonsense.”

“Ah, see? Perspective. We're off to a good start already.” 

“I’ll remember you called it that. ‘ _Perspective_.’ In case you forget when we really get into it.” 

She quirked an eyebrow. “Possibly.”

Rey was learning to temper her expectations when it came to other people, a lesson that was still hard won every time, but she couldn’t help having a good feeling about this. And now, at least, she could be open with Leia about what she was doing, assuming Leia’s response to learning the true nature of Rey’s activities was at least moderately positive. That remained to be seen, but she truly hoped she wasn’t wrong.

They sat a while longer and chatted quietly, Rey still secretly wishing to catch sight of some interesting animal or plant in the water. But eventually her gaze drifted from the water to Ben, then settled on the discarded wrappers that were the only indication of their impromptu breakfasting, and something told her it was time to go. She began gathering the trash, and soon they stood to leave the lake behind them. 

“I’ll speak to Leia as soon as I’m able,” she said as they neared her ship. The general was difficult to get alone most days and had been looking especially tired lately. But Rey also had a slight advantage of being on good terms with her and would likely be able to find the opportunity for a private talk, especially given the subject. “If you’re going to change your mind, now would be the time.”

“I’m not. Just tell me when you’ve done it.”

The reminder was making him tense, and she couldn’t fault him for that, so she didn’t press the point. There wasn’t anything to be gained by discussing it further until she had something to report back. Still, Rey felt the lack of something to say and couldn’t immediately place why. It hit her suddenly, and she turned to face him and brace against the side of the E-wing.

“I just realized I don’t know how to say goodbye to you. The connection would just have blinked out by now.” The only times she had left Ben physically behind her had been on Starkiller Base, where she’d left him bleeding in the snow, and on the _Supremacy_ , where she’d left him unconscious and broken in a different way. “I’m not good at it.”

“You’re definitely not,” he said, evidently following the same train of thought. “So don’t.”

That wasn’t terrible advice, and this wasn’t a goodbye in a true sense anyway. Rather than make any more of it, she took his hand and pulled him into a hug. “See you soon, then.” 

She wanted to do more. But something had passed between them when they kissed last night by the fire, as it had when they’d sparred, not just physical but provoked by the their bond in the Force and almost too intense to apprehend. She wasn’t sure she was ready to revisit it yet. She had a long flight ahead and enough on her mind and heart already. He seemed to be of a similar mind. He embraced her tightly and bent a little so that she could rest her face against his neck and lean into him. In the Force between them, fleeting enough that she almost thought she imagined it, Rey felt a single fierce pulse of his devotion to her, like a material thing she might take with her.

They released each other. He made for the treeline, and she set to the task of readying the E-wing for flight. Rey still didn’t like the idea of leaving him here alone, but for the first time she felt at peace about departing. This was only a start. Eventually, it would lead somewhere brighter, when the Force willed.

**Author's Note:**

> I definitely wasn't expecting a one-shot prompt reply to grow into a 40,000 word series of these two starting to work out their nonsense. And I hope that this has ended on a somewhat optimistic note. I may have to come back to this one day and do a follow-up, once I've got some more ideas, because I definitely want to see them trying to tackle thousand-year-old sacred books together.
> 
> For now, ~they'll always have Charissia~. 
> 
> Thanks for reading (and thanks to Yoda for that title)!


End file.
